‘The Virginian’ Star Randy Boone Dies at 83
Randy Boone, best known for playing singing ranch hand Randy Benton on the long-running NBC series The Virginian, died Thursday, August 28 at the age of 83. Boone’s death was reported to various Hollywood media outlets by his wife, Lana, who did not share any additional details.
The singing ranch hand
Boone joined The Virginian in the Season 2 episode “First to Thine Own Self,” as a guitar-toting drifter who protects a young girl from the murderers who killed her father and finds himself accused of the crime. Vindicated with the help of Betsy (Roberta Shore) and The Virginian (James Drury), Benton decides to put down roots in Medicine Bow and takes a job on the Shiloh Ranch.
Boone learned to ride a horse before he was even cast in The Virginian because Westerns were all the rage at the time. That good advice helped land him the Randy Benton role, plus guest spots on popular series like Wagon Train, Bonanza, Hondo, Cimaron Strip and Bonanza. He rode his own horse, Clyde, on The Virginian, in exchange for being able to board the horse at the Universal Studio lot.
Gene Trindl/TV Guide/courtesy Everett Collection
Window Dressing
Boone played Randy Benton midway through The Virginian‘s fourth season. By then he told Paul Green, author of “A History of Television’s ‘The Virginian,’ 1962-1971, the show’s producer Frank Price considered him “window dressing,” and let him go. Boone’s last episode, “A Bald-Faced Boy” saw Benton’s family arrive in Medicine Bow to protect him from bad guy James Claiborne (Andrew Duggan), who murdered another Benton family member. Turns out, Claiborne plans to move to Medicine Bow with his daughter Gloria (Karen Jensen) and Randy falls for the young woman, complicating matters for both families
Boone continued acting throughout the ’70s and ’80s, then left Hollywood to work in construction. He married twice, to Sylvia Howell from 1966-1969 and to Lana Redick from 2009 until his death. Boone was the father of one child, son Clyde Wilson Randall Boone III, now 62, who also survives him.
Everett Collection
Was Randy Boone related to Pat Boone?
In addition to being crooner/actor Pat Boone‘s cousin, Randy Boone was also the nephew of longtime actor Richard Boone (Have Gun – Will Travel, The Richard Boone Show, Hec Ramsey) and cousin to Pat Boone’s brother Nick Boone, who used the stage name Nick Todd and preferred a career in music to the Hollywood spotlight.
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September 2021
’50s and ’60s TV Westerns roundup, celebrating the shows and stars of their golden age.
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